Note: This post follows Will we ever move back to TX?

As I mentioned previously, I don’t know if we’ll ever move back to Texas. We do have family in TX, so that's an important consideration, but it just doesn't seem that anywhere in TX could offer a comparable lifestyle of driving very little, walking a lot in the city, and hiking in nature.

But, who knows what the coming years will bring. If we were to move back, it would likely be to Dallas or Austin. While there are some nice things about living in Texas, there are several factors that currently make us wonder if we could be as happy in TX as we are here:

• The weather would keep us indoors - Weather in TX is much more extreme than in Seattle, especially in summer. While the wet weather here discourages us from hiking sometimes, it usually doesn't keep us inside. In TX, we'd have to forget about the Saturday afternoon summer hikes that we love. And actually, just forget about doing anything outdoors comfortably on a summer afternoon.


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  We'd have to drive more - We drive our one car 6,000 miles annually and don't have to drive to work or to many places we often go to. We might be able to overcome this if we lived in downtown of a Texas city and could walk or take a bus to work, but no urban area I'm aware of competes with the shopping and dining available in downtown Seattle and the nearby neighborhoods that we can walk or bus to.


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  We wouldn't be able to enjoy walking as much - While downtown areas in TX are walkable, they're more often surrounded by freeways and large arterials with limited places to cross. Sidewalks are often narrow and the buildings ignore the streetscape leaving nothing to look at but strips of grass and limestone walls. And, most areas outside of downtown areas just aren't really designed for walking unless you want to walk along a busy arterial road and walk across acres of parking lots to go into any retail store.
  
  While Seattle does not compare to world-class pedestrian cities like Melbourne or San Francisco, it's still a good place to walk. The signalling and siewalks are adequate and we can get around in most areas comfortably on foot.
  
  I'd be concerned about being limited in a Texas city to only having parts of downtown and small areas in a couple other parts of town that would be enjoyable to walk through. I don't want to have to go to a strip mall just to be able to walk somewhere other than a residential neighborhood or busy arterial street.


• There's less to do outdoors - There are fewer parks in Texas cities than here and much fewer places we could hike outside the city. While I'm sure there are some state parks and other areas in TX that we're not aware of, there are just so many excellent outdoor options within 60 miles of us right now.


• The natural beauty does not compare - It's not Texas' fault that the Pacific Northwest is so beautiful. Texas has its own, more subtle type of beauty, but it can't compete with the forest, mountains, and water near Seattle.


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  We don't want to see the air we breathe - Seattle's air isn't always pristine, especially on hot summer days, but the smog in Texas is considerably worse. I just don't like being able to see what I breathe.


• There's less to do nearby - While Seattle looks like one of the more isolated cities in the county on a map, there are actually lots of things to do nearby. Outdoor destinations like the three National Parks nearby, the Oregon coastline, and islands in Puget Sound are in a different league from attractions like Enchanted Rock and Inner Space Caverns in TX. And San Antonio and Houston just can't compete with the Northwest cities of Vancouver and Portland.


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  We'd have to readjust to the culture - An area's culture affects everything from what is eaten to what is said to whether car dealerships have 8 state flags and only 1 national flag. A culture is hard to explain, but is better understood through experiencing the myriad ways in which a culture is expressed in its environment. So, since it's hard to get into specifics without thoroughly explaining and potentially misrepresenting the respective cultures, I'll just say that the culture here fits us better.

As time goes on, our perceptions, preferences, and priorities will evolve, but right now these issues are all relevant to how we want to live our lives and they discourage us from wanting to move back to Texas.